Case study: the entrepreneur

Anton Ziolkowski is a professor of petroleum geoscience at the University of Edinburgh. He has a BA in engineering and physics and a PhD in geophysics from the University of Cambridge. As well as academic research, Ziolkowski worked as a geophysicist at the UK National Coal Board and the British National Oil Corporation.

A common dilemma in oil and gas exploration is whether or not to spend money digging exploratory wells. Seismic techniques are good for finding porous rock but this is no guarantee that the rock contains oil or gas deposits. To avoid drilling before knowing for sure that there are hydrocarbons – the chain-like chemical compounds that make up oil and gas – down there rather than just salty water, Anton Ziolkowski, along with two colleagues from the University of Edinburgh in the UK, developed a method to measure the ground’s hydrocarbon content using electricity. They commercialised the technology and later set up a spin-off company called MTEM (which stands for “multi-transient electromagnetics”) to market their technique.

Their idea was to apply an electric current to the Earth’s surface, sending electromagnetic waves into the ground. Receiver electrodes then pick up the reflections that have bounced off the different layers, giving information about the electrical properties of the rocks beneath. Areas of high electrical resistance in porous rock indicate oil or gas, says Ziolkowski.

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To commercialise the new method, the team received £200,000 from the innovation support body Scottish Enterprise for patents and prototype equipment. They then assessed their start-up costs for equipment, location and staff. The sum was so large that the researchers needed a CEO to bring investors on board.

In 2004, three years after proof of principle trials, the team launched MTEM with a budget of £7.4 million. This meant that rather than waiting for months or years to buy resources to test their ideas through the university, Ziolkowski and his collaborators could buy equipment or hire staff as soon as they took the decision. “If you know what you want to do, you can get a lot done fast,” says Ziolkowski.

Even so, the oversight from their investors was more exhaustive than the academics were used to, with milestones to reach, monthly board meetings and weekly progress reports. While Ziolkowski found the fast-paced environment exciting, he recalls “we were on a treadmill from day one.”

MTEM ran independently for three years between 2004 and 2007, at which point the Norwegian company Petroleum GeoServices (PGS) bought the start-up for £137 million. Ziolkowski and the other co-founders continued to work at the company for two and half years as part of the acquisition deal.

Today Ziolkowski is back at the University of Edinburgh, although he continues his relationship with PGS in the form of a research alliance. The company pays a portion of his salary while his research group spends part of its time developing methods that may help the company.